We're back after CES and have a little bit of post-show wrap-up. We kick off this week's podcast with a discussion of Intel's near term challenges in the industry and Intel's decision to leave the desktop motherboard business. The Valvebox and the idea of a truly open console are next on the list of big topics for this week, although we also talk about Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa, the 3rd gen SandForce controller and Intel's newly announced Yolo smartphone.

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31 Comments

Is it me or does Ian have a UPS battery that's failing? I kept hearing a beep every 30 seconds, which sent me on a wild goose chase to find out which UPS was having an issue! (I had an APC UPS die on me the other day, so I've been on edge. =P)Reply

Intel's big problem isn't that OEMs aren't out-Appling Apple. Intel sells a part either way. Display calibration drives an insignificant number of sales. And only Mac-obsessed tech reviewers are still obsessed with trackpads now that touchscreens have made them obsolete.

Their problem is that their core, monopoly-profite part of the market is going -- has gone -- from central to peripheral in a flash.Reply

Trackpads, especially with the range of functions that they have on OS X are far from obsolete, especially with larger screen sizes. Touchscreen is fun when you can operate it using wrist motion. Elbow and shoulder, not so much.Reply

Programming on Commodore 64 (or Sinclair Spectrum in my case) was mostly done in assembly code if you wanted to get things done in reasonable time. But it was still possible to write bloated inefficient code or very optimized/compact code. Documented Sinclair ROM book was excellent showcase of the latter, some games of the former. The only difference was that the differences back then were not abysmal as sometimes today.

I have been running Intel motherboards since 2006, both the high end and low end and the point for me was always kind of robustness in both the layout and in a sense that every single feature (big or small) always worked as it should. There were no surprises like feature X does not work with card Y, or under condition Z, etc. Before I have had ASUS, Gigabyte (and even before ABIT) and I remember there was always some catch. So maybe Intel boards were not super overclockable (but I left this arena already), but otherwise very good and all round products.

I do not agree with Brian on the security level in current consoles and their impact. It seems to me that it is very easy to get a pirated game running on a PC, but it is still quite difficult to get it on a console (if possible at all). And this differentiator makes great difference in sales. As long as new PC like console will carry the same stigma as regular PC, the devs will not have the same incentive to develop for it, no matter how open it will be, because it will not bring revenue. So while fixed hardware spec is one part of the console, closed and reasonably protected/secured ecosystem is another and both together define the industry.Reply

You may "feel" like you describe in the last paragraph, but the data doesn't back you up. Plenty of success stories on the PC, many DRM free titles seeing no significant decrease in financial success, PC ports paying for themselves in 2 days (Alan Wake), massive innovation in gaming IPs being done by the indy PC community and so on. Don't believe the BS the major publisher are sprouting. Reply